LAND AND PROPERTY TAX.

Dunstan Times, Issue 941, 30 April 1880, Page 3

LAND AND PROPERTY TAX.

Considerable misapprehension appears to exist as to tho exact positions of the Land Tax and Property Tax. The Wellington Post makes the following remarks on this subject Both the Land Tax and the Property Tax will have to he paid for the current quarter. The former is collected for tile financial year under the old system, ending on tho 30th June, while the latter is levied for the new financial year, which begins on the Ist April. It follows consequently, that the two periods overlap, and that persons who have paid their Land Tax up to the 30th of June next are not thereby exempted from having to pay Property Tax on the same landed property for the whole of the current financial year, including the quarter which commenced on the Ist inst. Ibis will not be very pleasing news to those fortunate persons whose large possessions cause them to contribute rather heavily towards the public burdens; hut it is undoubtedly tho law and will he carried out unless Parliament should interfere to prevent it, and in the present state of Colonial finances it is possible that so acceptable a “ haul ” will not be relinquished. It is calculated that the extra sum yielded by the simultaneous collection of both taxes, notwithstanding that the one was supposed to repeal the other, will bo some L 20.000 or L 30.000. The country will gain and the land owners and property men have only to “pay and look pleasant.” Doubtless they will be compelled to do the former, but we fear that all compulsion will prove vain to produce an agreeable expression of countenance under tho extra wrench.